The Duke of Movietown
I saw THE JUDGE! This movie tells the story of a big city lawyer, played here by Robert Downey Jr. and his estranged father, a small town judge played by Robert Duvall who finds himself in hot water surrounding a late night car accident that he was involved in.This movie is just an amazing acting display by Downey Jr. and Duvall and you can really feel both the animosity and the deep down love between the two which feels real and genuine. The supporting cast also does a great job with Vincent D'Onofrio, Vera Farmiga and Billy Bob Thornton providing some pretty impressive backup. This movie is like an unstoppable train of tuned acting skill that refuses to slow down for anything. It truly delivers on everything it promises and even gives you a little bit more. Masterful job by everyone who is involved. The judge gets a 4... out of 5
lor_
In Hollywood, as always, box office is what matters to the folk in charge of hiring. So David Dobkin, a certifiable hack director, gets to produce and direct this lame drama on the basis of legendary financial performance of his comedy "Wedding Crashers".What the long-suffering movie fans get is sentimental slop, with such obvious pulling at the heart strings in the final reels I thought we were being transported to the late Silent Era. Needless to say, Dobkin is no Frank Borzage, the sort of talent needed to pull that off.Robert Downey Jr.'s mannered performance is one-note and extremely facile - hardly worthy of his currently inflated reputation. Yes, the once-promising star of challenging '80s roles and even the impossible task of his Chaplin biopic is now playing himself, not his real self but his screen self so familiar from umpteen iterations. Why not, one might ask -such a strategy certainly worked for Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood. But this is not an iconic Western, cop or just shucks-hero role, but one calling for some subtlety.At one point Vera Farmiga's character makes fun of Downey's verbal diarrhea and false erudite stance, more a criticism of the actor than the character he's playing. Even a great character actor Robert Duvall falls into similar traps and clichés, as does Vincent D'Onofrio in a role nearly as stereotyped as the hokey youngest "challenged" brother. And Billy Bob Thornton's underplaying as the sort of bad guy of the piece (with a heart of gold, cornily thrown in late in the day) is for me (a Thornton nay-sayer from the good old "Sling Blade" short film days) just another walk-through for the guy who never would have made it back in talent-rich Old Hollywood.
